April 11, 2024 • 49 mins
It’s 1946, three years after King Boris III’s death and a heavy Iron Curtain has fallen over Bulgaria. What dark secrets does it conceal? Host Becky Milligan learns some disturbing facts about the Soviet secret services and why they couldn’t let sleeping kings lie. And we hear a haunting tale from the royal children as they meet their father again – three years after they buried him…
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
A crisp winter's night in the grounds of Varana Palace
mid nineteen fifties, two burly men in thick overcoats trudged
through the long grass. Their breath creates huge clouds of
vapor in the sharp cold air. Their flashlights pick out
(00:39):
a small stone building hidden among the trees. Varana's a
wild place now. The beautiful tree lined avenues planted by
the king are straggly and overgrown, the flower beds choked
with weeds and garbage. The men take spades from the
(01:06):
tool shed and start to dig. There's a large stone
slab set in the grass. They lever it up and
with some difficulty, they haul it to one side. The
light from their flashlights flickers, but you can just about
(01:31):
make out the inscription chiseled into the weathered stone. It
reads King Boris the Third. This is the grave of
the last crowned King of Bulgaria, a victim of poisoning.
And these men, they're grave robbers. They work for the
(01:56):
new residents of Rana Palace, the new rules of Bulgaria,
the communists under Russian Soviet control. Grave robbers usually look
for gold or jewels. Not these grave robbers, though, thereafter
something much more precious the body. Why steal a corpse
(02:29):
unless you're afraid it's got something to hide? Did the
Soviets fear they were about to be exposed for the
murder of King Boris from Blanchard House? And exactly right? Media,
(02:49):
this is the butterfly King. I'm Becky Milligan, Chapter five,
(03:35):
caught red handed. Oh yes, what do you want?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Do you want? Well?
Speaker 3 (03:43):
I think we finally discovered a nice biscuit.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah, the eagle has landed.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
Here we are.
Speaker 5 (03:51):
I'll take one.
Speaker 6 (03:52):
You haven't pretty good?
Speaker 4 (03:53):
That's okay.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Oh, just all.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
These type of poison.
Speaker 6 (03:56):
I'm afraid I need.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
To take my own biscuit. So we're back in Sofia,
Bulgaria's capital, in my producer EJ's hotel room, and we're
taking stock of our day over tea and biscuits. It's
a British custom, of course, though not necessarily one. The
Bulgarians have mastered.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
These biscuits taste of air.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
It's like, oh, sorry, it's like flower it's my carpet.
Well they're tasting.
Speaker 6 (04:26):
They are a bit flowering. I'll give you that, a bit.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Oh my god, they're just coating the inside of my
rout as well as the biscuits. We're also trying to
chew over what we know about the case so far.
You can sort of cross countries off as you're going along.
You know, I was convinced that it was Nazis without
adult you know, on the plane with oxygen mask or
(04:51):
a bit of poison or you know, snake venom. And
as we've gone along, we've just crossed off each theory.
And then there's been another twist and another twist. But
now we have a fresh lead on who may have
killed the king thanks to a top secret decoded telegram
we unearthed in the archives. It points the finger of
(05:11):
blame fairly and squarely at Stalin's Soviet Union, the Communists
who occupied Bulgaria in nineteen forty four, a year after
Boris's death, and promptly turned the country red. So I
think it narrows it.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
Do you know where the Communist embassy was? Russian?
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Don't tell me? Next to the palace spot on. Yeah,
so you could have dug a tunnel under.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Well, you just popped in.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yeah, there'll be more twists, more twists, and turns to
car So was it the Soviets who killed Boris, and
if so, why to help investigate this case. We have
the best witnesses you could hope for King Boris's children,
(06:07):
Her Royal Highness Maria Louisa aged ninety, and his Majesty
King Simeon now eighty six. I mean, I don't say
this lightly, but it does feel quite a privilege to
have actually sat down with them. They agreed to do it,
and to talk so candidly about how the hell their
(06:27):
father died? I agree, I mean, and was he murdered?
And you know, it's obviously they've been consumed with it
for years and years and years. Both of them think
it wasn't normal. He didn't die a natural death. You
can just tell their faces tell you that. And they
want to know what happened, and they're so with it,
I mean, more with it than I was actually. But anyway,
(06:48):
well it's not so much have another best king. But anyway,
it's all very intriguing. Okay, So let's talk about the
Soviet Union and the tyrannical Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Stalin
(07:09):
dreamt of spreading communism across Eastern Europe and of creating
a buffer of territory there to protect the Motherland, the
Soviet Union. Little Bulgaria was right at that crossroads between
East and West Sandwich, between Romania and Greece, a vital
foothold for anyone trying to consolidate their power in the region.
(07:34):
So Stalin really wanted to control it. The only problem
was that there was a king in the way, a
very popular king.
Speaker 7 (07:45):
That's why Boris has been killed.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Hang on, let's hear that again.
Speaker 7 (07:50):
That's why Boris has been killed.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Okay, deep breath. Before we unpick this bombshell, let me
remind you that George Bosdiganov Bulgaria's leading historian. You might remember.
He's the academic who sometimes gets a little frustrated with
me when I can't keep up with the minutii of
Bulkan politics. But you heard him as well as I did.
(08:18):
He believes the Soviets needed King Boris out of the
way to fulfill an age old Russian dream of empire expansion,
and Boris was the annoying sort of obstacle who was
blocking the route.
Speaker 7 (08:32):
So ah, listen, listen to me a little bit.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Sorry, I'll let mister Bosdagaranov tell you himself.
Speaker 7 (08:42):
King Boris the only one buffer to study his ambitions
to take Bulgaria. That's very old to Russian ambitious, from
the time of Catherine the Great in Russia to centuries
before studying.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
I need this bailed out clearly. Who do you think
murdered King Boris?
Speaker 7 (09:04):
My personal opinion is that the Russian's special services killed
King Boris. Russian special services, Starling's special services killed him.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
So if we believe mister Bosdigaranov, the power hungry Soviets
decided to get the king out of the way, and
guess what happens. A year after Boris Is murdered, on
the fifth of September nineteen forty four, the Soviet Union
declares war on Bulgaria. Five days later, Stalin's Red Army
(09:39):
rolls into Sofia. They meet with no resistance. Many Bulgarians
welcome the Soviets as liberators. Don't forget Nazi troops have
been stationed in Bulgaria because King Boris had made an
alliance with Hitler. The Soviets team up with Communist dissidents
(10:01):
in Bulgaria. The new Red regime wastes no time in
securing power, and they sweep away their opponents ruthlessly. Thousands
are sentenced to death, not just those who supported the Nazis,
but basically anyone who didn't support them, like the royals,
(10:24):
the remaining royals. That is, now, after Boris dies, little
Simeon is on the throne. But it goes without saying
a child can't really run a country. So there are
three regents who rule for him. One of the regents
is Boris's prime minister, another is a high ranking general
(10:48):
in the Bulgarian army, and the third is King Boris's brother,
Prince Kirol.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
You get rid of him because he's going to be
a thorn in your side.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Are historian tell Sir Dunlop could see it coming, because
a few months after occupying Bulgaria, the Communists rounded up
the regents, then took them to a bomb crater in
Sophia Cemetery and shot them all dead, ruthless. And if
(11:23):
the Soviets could shoot a king's brother in cold blood,
doesn't it stand to reason that they could murder a
king too. But despite their successful power grab, something was
making the reds uneasy or should I say someone, because
the Soviets felt haunted by a ghost from the past,
(11:46):
a ghost who continued to make his presence felt from
beyond the grave. We're at the place where King Boris
was buried. After a memorial service in Sofia, the railwaymen
carried his coffin to the station. His body was then
(12:10):
taken by train here to the beautiful Realer monastery high
up in the Bulgarian mountains. The sound of the single
bell is plain and modest, but the building is extraordinarily ornate.
It's shaped in a sort of polygon, with black and
(12:30):
white archways striped like candy, and inside it's just amazing,
don't you think, Oh, blameyway.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
I mean, it's just it's.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Really difficult to convey just how remarkable it is, how ornate.
Every single bit of it is covered with frescoes, which
are sort of a dirty pink and blue and fox blood. Yeah, beautiful.
That noise you can hear is the monastery being cleaned
(13:00):
and polished. The huge gold chandelier gleamed so brightly it
actually makes you squint. It's like looking into the sun.
RelA is a fitting resting place for a king, but
the Soviets didn't see it that way. They wanted to
erase Boris from the collective memory because even after the
(13:23):
Soviet occupation, thousands of people still came to pray at
Boris's tomb as if it were a shrine. He was
a hero to so many Bulgarians, and that didn't please
the Communists. They wanted Bulgaria's regal past dead and buried
once and for all, So in nineteen forty six they
(13:47):
exumed King Boris and told his widow, Queen Giovanna, to
rebury him somewhere else, somewhere private. Maria Luisa was thirteen
years old and sime and nine when their father's body
was returned again to Varana Palace. It was deeply traumatic.
Speaker 6 (14:10):
Hideous, hideous. It was Holy Thursday, and my mother was
told they'll bring him back tomorrow morning. So mother called
some of the gardeners, found a little spot and had
a hole dug in the garden, and at dawn a
van arrived with the coffin.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
The royal children remember shivering in the half light, partly
from the cold, but partly from sheer terror. They were
still living in Varana, but the Soviets had put them
under house arrest, cut off from the outside world.
Speaker 6 (14:46):
Obviously, Communists did things all us in the dark. That's
part of their system, you know, so that people don't
see it. So they brought the coffin, and the coffin was,
of course with a little glass window, so we children
saw our papa three years after he had died. You know,
(15:07):
it wasn't easy. And then they buried him there and
Mamaden asked little chapels to be built on top of it.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Of course, it would have been easy for Stalin to
order the assassination of the remaining royals. He'd done away
with Boris's brother, and quite possibly with Boris himself too,
But the Soviets knew how popular the royals were. Murdering
the royal children was just too risky, so they played
(15:38):
it softly, softly.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
When you're occupying force, you want to take the hearts
and minds with you. To an extent, there's got to
be a sort of air of respectability.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Our historian Tessa Dunlop, I.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Mean, how much oppositions you get from a six year old?
I get quite a lot of opposition from mine, actually,
But you know, in real political terms, Boris was a
big hero, so why would you butcher his son, his
little delicate piece of progeny. Why wouldn't you just keep
that politically emasculated as a fig leaf of respectability to
(16:14):
smooth over your accession to power or takeover of power,
which is what the Communists did.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
So once their takeover of power is secure, the Soviets
find a better way of getting rid of Simeon and
his mother and sister. They send them into exile in Egypt,
and as soon as the royal family move out of
Rana Pallas, communist leaders move in. It'll be fifty years
(16:41):
before Simeon and Maria Luisa see their home again. But
even with the royal family now thousands of miles away,
the Communists can't let their beef with royalty rest there.
In fact, they can't let Boris rest at all. Let's
(17:04):
knit back to Varana Palace for a second. The King's
charming age. Jarfl has something to show us, a crime scene.
But on the way, a little digression. Are you getting chili?
It is a bit chilly, only my head? Yeah, how
(17:24):
far is the cemetery?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Is here? Oh?
Speaker 6 (17:27):
Perfect?
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Jarvar is taking us to a little clearing in the woodland,
and in the long grass there's a small collection of
flagstone graves, the resting place of some other short lived
members of the royal household, four legged ones.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
He is born in May ninety twenty three and to
die in May nineteen twenty six.
Speaker 8 (17:53):
This is quite common, isn't it to have a dog
cemetery in royal palaces? Actually, I think the Queen definitely
did have one, and now King Charles.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
This is also in Bulgarian, but this is in Latin, right,
Booby Booby.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
I like the name Booby. The Communists clearly didn't have
a problem with royal pets lovely, so therefore here on.
Speaker 8 (18:20):
Five and the big one.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
The big one is interesting.
Speaker 9 (18:23):
It's not a dog, right, Yeah, it's a horse of
King Boris.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
King Boris's horse, Oh, how lovely?
Speaker 2 (18:33):
And King Signon have one cat, had one cat.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
It's the tradition continues, yes it does.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Moving on from the pet cemetery, we arrive at the
crime scene. I mentioned King Boris's grave, and while all
the pets have headstones, there's nothing now at Varana to
mark the grave of King Boris the third because the
graves empty. In the nineteen fifties, a few years after
(19:16):
they'd ordered the king's body to be reburied from the
real monastery to Frana, the Communists did something extraordinary, They
decided to exhume the king again. Remember where we started
this episode. Sometime in the nineteen fifties, in the dead
(19:38):
of night, the Communists dug up Boris's body. They removed
it from its resting place in the gardens of Vrana
Palace and took it away. Where to is anyone's guess. Now.
By the nineteen fifties, Stalin's Red Army had long since
left Bulgaria. They might back home in nineteen forty seven,
(20:02):
but the new Communist leadership that was established in Sofia
wasn't just loyal to Moscow. It was basically a satellite
of the Soviet Union. When Stalin said jump, Bulgaria just
asked how high. So did Stalin order the second exhumation
because he was afraid the Soviet Union might be found
(20:25):
out for the murder of the king? Was he trying
to destroy the evidence by stealing the king's corpse and
disposing of it? And remember that little chapel. Maria Louisa
told us it had been built over the grave to
mark her father's tomb. At first, the Communist used it
as a.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Tool shed and then a little blown up.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Over the years. Maria Luisa and Simeon have tried desperately
to find out what happened to their beloved father's remains,
even managed to trace the Bulgarian soldiers who dug up
the grave.
Speaker 6 (21:05):
I was told that there were some soldiers that had
taken out the body from the tomb here in the garden.
And I definitely didn't ask to see these poor riches
because they are not the ones who did it. You know,
they were ordered, and God knows what could have happened
to their families if I ever confronted them, you know,
(21:28):
don't forget that BULGEO. Until a few years there were
still some of the old people around, some of the
old communists, you know, and I would never have anybody
disappear or get punished them. And it is a total
mystery what they did with my father's body.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
So, but the story didn't end there. Many years later,
it took an even more sinister turn. In nineteen ninety one,
after the fall of immunism, a dirty glass jar was
found in a medical institute in Sofia. Inside it was
(22:08):
a human heart, preserved a royal human heart.
Speaker 6 (22:14):
It survived because it was checked and it is Papa's heart.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
I mean is not doubt about it.
Speaker 6 (22:19):
So when it was found, of course some people had
to parade it hearth of the king, and my poor
mother saw it on the newspaper, which totally unnecessary.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Why did the Soviets preserve the king's heart as a trophy,
a souvenir of their heenous crime. It's not altogether unknown
for a monarch to have his mortal remains divided. Louis
the fourteenth of France had his body buried in one
Parisian church, while his heart was interred at Notre Dame Cathedral.
(22:52):
But Queen Giovanna certainly didn't ask for this to happen
to her husband, King Boris, so who removed his heart?
And why then hide that heart unless you fear it
contains proof of a poisonous secret. Now, when I began
this investigation, everyone I spoke to told me to listen
(23:15):
closely to Maria Louisa, because while King Simeon has to
toe the line of diplomacy, she can speak her mind
more freely about who she believes killed her father. So
I'm going to test that theory now and put Maria
Louisa on the spot. Do you have any gut feeling
(23:39):
of who it was.
Speaker 6 (23:41):
I think I can leave that to you by deduction
who had the greatest advantage so gets rid of him.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
It's a nail biting moment. I desperately want Maria Louisa
to tell me who she thinks murdered her father. So
I say nothing and wait, and then.
Speaker 6 (24:05):
In my soul I see the only people who had
it really an advantage were getting rid of him because
they were there yet letter the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
There we have it. Maria Luisa is convinced the Soviets
killed her father, and not only that, she's sure they
spent the next fifty years rewriting history and covering up
the evidence.
Speaker 6 (24:34):
Don't forget that when they occupied us, they took the
whole entire Bulgarian archives, stayed archives, and they're still in Moscow.
They were never returned. Bulgaria has asked for them, they
never give back.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Could the proof lie in Moscow in the archives of
the Russian Secret Services the KGB? Nobody can get to
those because that could be quite interesting.
Speaker 6 (25:02):
Yes, I can't ride anything.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
I think we've now established the Soviets had a very
clear motive for killing Boris. As for their means, well,
Russian assassins have long had a love affair with poison.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
They have no morals or scruples, They have no limits.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Colonel Hamish de Breton Gordon is our chemical weapons expert.
He told us about the nerve agents that the Nazis
were developing in the war. But it turns out that
the Germans were novices compared to the Soviets.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
You know, most of the poisons that we're talking about.
The most knowledge we have about assassination is again coming
from the Russians, the Russian secret Service.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
In the last few decades, there've been several high profile
poisoning cases involving the Russians secret services. Russian dissidents have
been attacked with deadly nerve agents and chemical weapons like ricin,
polonium and novichok, and with chilling success. And unlike snake venom,
(26:17):
which has to be injected to kill someone, nerve agents
can work their way through the skin. Some are so
powerful you just need to brush against them to suffer
serious consequences, as the Russian opposition leader Alexi Navalni found
out in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
With Nabalni, there's a view actually that the nerve agent
was put in his parents it's hunderpants and that's how
it got into him.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Now, King Boris was a canny politician. So despite Bulgaria
officially being an enemy of the Soviet Union, remember Bulgaria
was allied with Germany, Boris had managed to keep up
diplomatic relations with Stalin and that meant the Russian embassy
stayed open throughout the war, right next door to the
(27:08):
Royal Palace. It wouldn't have been difficult for the Russians
to sneak in poison on a door handle, perhaps in food,
maybe even in documents or letters. And before you remind
me that nerve agents like Novechok weren't invented until much later,
believe me, their predecessors were equally terrifying. How do we
(27:31):
know that, Well, the Soviets might have hidden all of
Bulgaria's archives, but some of their own intelligence surfaced in
the nineteen nineties, basically after the fall of communism, top
secret documents from Russia were very briefly declassified, and in
those papers the proof that by nineteen forty three, the
(27:55):
year of King Boris's death, two poison laboratories were up
and running in the Soviet Union, and guests who saw
those papers about the poison factories.
Speaker 7 (28:07):
I saw them in the nineties.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Our very own favorite Bulgarian historian, George Bostergaranoff. And there's
something I haven't told you yet about George Bostergaranoff, something
that will make you really pay attention to what he's
saying here, because apart from being an eminent historian, mister
Bosdegaranoff's also a doctor, a medical doctor.
Speaker 10 (28:34):
That is.
Speaker 7 (28:36):
From ninety thirty eight to nineteen fifty three, the Anchovid
that's Rusian Special Service maintained two laboratories for the production
of deadly poisonous toxicological one and bacteriological one.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
And these laboratories had a specific brief, not just to
silence Stalin's enemies, but.
Speaker 7 (28:59):
To do it without leaving any traces.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
In other words, to get away with it, and to
make sure they did. The Soviets practiced on real people,
on prisoners, and this is where it all starts to
sound like some sort of gruesome parlor game. Once the
prisoner died, external pathologists were brought in to play guests
(29:26):
the cause of death.
Speaker 7 (29:28):
Two hundred to fifty people were cute during these experiments.
The Corps of the persons cute are taken to the
marks of medical institutes or unsuspecting doctors perform autopsy.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
So you're telling me that they were developing poisons, toxins
that could be used to kill people, and they tested
them on prisoners, mostly didn't they And yet no doctor
could ever tell that poison had been used.
Speaker 7 (30:00):
The diagnosis is usually unequivocal acute heart failure, heart attack.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Acute heart failure heart attack, precisely the official cause of
death given for King Boris, the third of Bulgaria. So
is that how the Soviets got away with murder? Bulgaria's
(30:28):
national archives never resurfaced, but we know the Communists did
mysteriously unearth Boris's heart, preserved in a jar, from that
medical institute in Sofia, and when the royal family was
made aware that Boris's heart had been found, they asked
for it to be reburied again at the realer monastery,
(30:50):
where it remains today. So will you show us where
the remains of King Boris?
Speaker 5 (30:58):
On the right side? What do we see here is
the grave of King Boris aut let Us gone inside.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
This is amazing because we've heard so much about it.
Speaker 4 (31:09):
Every mad just amazing and to be let into the
private bit.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
This is where where his son Simeon comes to pay
his respects every year. Listen to Michael, the official tour
guide at RelA talk about the king and you really
get why the Soviets needed Boris out of the way.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
King Boris A thirty is the most prominent, respected and
loved Bulgarian ruler from the modern Bulgarian history. He was
famous for his deep concern for the life of the
common people, his great care towards the poor and the Sikh.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
The Soviets could never have marched in and occupied Bulgaria
if the adored king had still been on the throne.
The Bulgarian people just wouldn't have stood for it.
Speaker 5 (31:58):
People still venerated King Boris through it as a saint,
did they as a saint? Yes, they venervated him with kritlov.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
As for the communists sacrilegious treatment to the King's body
after his death, well they nearly didn't get away with it.
Remember the first time the Communists decided to dig up
the king at RelA and to dump him at Frana.
When the Habbit of Reela got wind of the plan,
he refused the grave Digger's access. He reminded them that
(32:27):
Reela was a holy place. But the Communists had no
truck with either monarchs or monks. Plus they had a
visit from a Soviet big wig pending, and they couldn't
have fought for that Soviet big wig to think the
Bulgarians were still pining for their royals. So that night
they came with their spades.
Speaker 5 (32:48):
The monks were locked inside their rooms and they were
warrant that if anyone goes out, they would be killed immediately.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Yes, the Communists knew how to get their own way,
and they knew that dead or alive, Boris still posed
a threat to their regime. So they did what our
historian Tessa Dunlop says is standard Communist practice. There raised
him from history.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
After the Iron curtain comes down, and even before you
want to eradicate the memory of the individual monarch who
gives the nation something nostalgic, romantic and a world or
a vision other than the Communist vision. And it's one
of the reasons why we haven't heard of some of
these great personalities like Ferdinand, like Boris of Bulgaria, because
(33:38):
the Communist did a really good job of burying their legacy,
their history.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
So we know the Soviet specialty was rewriting history, but
they could hardly write a new national story with an
old protagonist in the starring role. So they needed to
write King Boris clean out of the script, and once
he was off, they were free to write a brand
new chapter of their own, one in which the Communists
(34:06):
were the heroes.
Speaker 9 (34:13):
Devati is on a grad Detective.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Anna Blagova and Gianna Punkiner host a Bulgarian podcast called
The Urban Detective. Their show explores all kinds of different
cultural and social topics, but they've never dared tackle the
death of King Boris because despite the fact they're highly educated,
(34:37):
Anna admits their own history is a bit of a
mystery to them. Under the Communists, any debate about Bulgaria's
past was completely squashed.
Speaker 9 (34:49):
One of the reasons I guess we don't know much
about it is that Bulgearian history is still very contested.
It was very contested when we were in school, and
to be honest, I only study twentieth century Bulgarian history
in sixth grade, so this period has kind of I
feel faded from memory.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Both women were born around the time the Communist regime
collapsed in Bulgaria. That's almost fifty years after King Boris's death,
but Anna says there's still a huge divide in her
country between those who are royalists and those who are
Communist sympathizers.
Speaker 9 (35:28):
We're very polarized and there is a clash between those
two kinds of nostalgia, which is preventing any sort of
normal discussion and truth to come out.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
In fact, Yanna wonders if the truth about who killed
King Boris maybe needs to stay buried because it's still
such a poisonous subject.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
I don't know if it would be good to know,
even maybe it would have a bad effect on people.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
It's just interesting when you say it might be bad
for people to know the truth. Why would it be bad?
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Because I think that there is this thing about Bulgaria.
You know that Bulgaria is such a small country that
everything that could be a political question is not really
political questions of family question Like everybody is everybody's relative.
Everybody knows someone who knows someone who knows someone, or
who has seen something, and every political change or thurpulence
(36:27):
or argument in the country is somehow happening inside the families.
It's very different from a like a big country with
the century long history of democracy, because here everybody is related.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Both Anna and Yanna have seen fierce clashes within their
own families over the interpretation of Bulgarian history. There are
two conflicting narratives, those who believe the Soviets murdered the
king so they could invade and occupy Bulgaria, and those
who believe the Communists heroically liberated their country from fascism
(37:04):
from Boris's alliance with Hitler.
Speaker 9 (37:06):
I don't know where to stand on this, and now
it's very hard to come to an independent conclusion by yourself.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
We're still learning what was going on during the communist regime. Yeah,
we don't know everything.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Anna Anyana both feel uncomfortable about this disputed history, particularly because,
through Bulgaria's past alliance with Nazi Germany, they feel their
country was implicated in the deportation of those eleven thousand
Jews from Thrace and Macedonia.
Speaker 9 (37:44):
I feel some sort of guilt as a descendant, some
sort of generational guilt. And even though, of course Bulgarian
civil society, in one of its greatest acts, managed to
prevent the Jewish people on the territory of Bulgaria from
being sent off to concentration camps. The ones from our
(38:07):
presumed old territories were deported. So I think it's impossible
not to feel this sort of sort of guilt. So
it doesn't make me feel angry, it makes me feel sad.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Of course, I don't think that I feel guilt. I
definitely feel shamed, because, yeah, we were on the wrong
side of history. King Boris was probably he was also
against deportation. But I think King Boris was probably in
an extremely delicate position during the Second World War, and
I think he was working on a very thin tightrope.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
And someone couldn't wait for Boris to fall off that tightrope,
so someone gave him a shove. I want you to
hear just one more bit of evidence about the Soviets
and the deep hatred of royalty.
Speaker 10 (39:03):
I will tell you something.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Maybe haven't mentioned, but listen closely, because Simeon rarely bears
his soul, and this story tells us a lot about
the callousness of the Soviets, about what they were capable
of and what they were prepared to do to make
sure history went their way. You'll remember that just a
(39:26):
few months after the Red Army marched into Sofia, Boris's brother,
Prince Kirol and the other regents were rounded up to
be executed. Queen Giovanna was distraught, and she was terrified
for her children's safety. What if they were next? So
she wrote a letter, a begging letter, pleading for help.
(39:48):
It was smuggled out of the palace and addressed to
King Boris's English cousins, to the Windsors, to King George
the sixth of Great Britain.
Speaker 10 (39:58):
And she don't say, desperate letter to his Majesty to
say if something could be done, And there was never
an answer or anything like it.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Whole Queen Giovanna went to her grave believing King Boris's
British family had turned their backs on their Bulgarian relatives.
But Simeon felt sure something was a miss. So one
day in the nineteen eighties, he was hanging out with
Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret at Balmoral, the royal estate
(40:33):
in Scotland, as one does, and perhaps emboldened by some
good Scotch whiskey. Okay, admittedly that's just how I imagine
the scene, he dared to ask them the question why
did your father ignore our plea for help?
Speaker 10 (40:54):
I was also looking if that letter had ever arrived.
It didn't. They had never received it, so it was
intercepted from here where my mother gave it to somebody,
who gave it to somebody else who should have passed
it on, although we were already occupied by the Soviets.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Exactly, Bulgaria was already occupied by the Soviets, who certainly
didn't want the royal family a family they were intent
on wiping out being aided in any way at all.
So if we suspect it was the Soviets who intercepted
that letter, can we also now conclude that it was
also very probably the Soviets who murdered King Boris. They
(41:38):
had their motive, they had the means, and they had
the opportunity.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
I'm not saying it wasn't possible. I'm not saying it
didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
But that's the one problem with historian Tessa Dunlop. There's
always a butt sure.
Speaker 4 (41:54):
I am not refuting the capacity of the Soviet Union
to murder. Most foul had many ingenious ways of bopping
people off, and would go on and hone those faculties
for many decades to come. Nor am I denying that
Boris wasn't a potential target. I just think that it's unlikely.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
But even Maria Luisa has stuck her neck out to
blame the Soviets.
Speaker 4 (42:23):
That's certainly what the family would want you to think
that the Royal family, because they lost their entire livelihood
and their country to the Communists who took away Simian's kingdom.
Who rubbed out the royal family in Bulgaria was the Russians?
Wasn't it so convenient in terms of that narrative if
you're a monarchist in Bulgaria to blame the Russians?
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Well, okay, yes, I can see that. Obviously, Simeon and
Maria Luisa are going to be resentful of the Soviets.
They did abolish the monarchy after all, and went on
to steal all their palaces. But what about the Soviet
embassy in Sofia. Now, for me, the proximity of that
(43:03):
embassy to the Royal Palace provided the Soviets with the
perfect opportunity to kill the king. Why but not for Tessa?
Speaker 4 (43:15):
Sure that the Soviets had much better intelligence going on
in Bulgaria. It's Laughter's laugh, But Bulgaria hadn't declared war
on the Soviets. They've never put boots on the ground
in Russia. And given that he's revered in Bulgaria, he
has the hearts and minds of the people, why would
you pick him of all people to poison to practice
(43:38):
your poisoning on Why?
Speaker 1 (43:41):
I suppose Tessa has a point there. I mean King
Boris repeatedly refused Hitler's demands to send Bulgarian troops to
fight the Russians on the Eastern Front. He also deliberately
left Russia out of his symbolic declaration of war against
the Allies.
Speaker 4 (43:59):
Is a man who held the door open. He said himself,
my people are pro Russian, I am pro Bulgaria.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
But this still doesn't quite add up for me. I'm
afraid because the fact is we know King Boris hated Communism.
He feared correctly as it turned out, that Bulgaria would
be swallowed up by the Soviet Union. And we also
know that loathing was mutual.
Speaker 4 (44:30):
The Communists had beef with the king, certainly they're not
easy bedfellows. But if he was murdered at the command
of a Communist, then it would have been done by
I think a Bulgarian communist, someone with the nohow, with
the wherewith all and with the contacts. Sorry, but we
never looked for the most obvious.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
Right, Let's just unpick that for a second. So Tessa
is not saying I'm wrong to blame communist assassins for
the King's much. She's just saying I should perhaps focus
on homegrown communist assassins rather than the Soviets themselves on
Bulgarian communists.
Speaker 4 (45:12):
I'm not saying that any of these individual parties weren't
capable of it. And this was the Second World War,
it was the biggest period of mass murder known to
humankind ever, I'm just saying, don't rule out the Communist
on the ground.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Now, that's interesting because I happen to know that the
Bulgarian Communist Party had a really rocky relationship with the king.
In fact, Boris banned the Communist Party altogether in the
nineteen thirties, so the Bulgarian Communists had a major grudge
against him. Does this mean the killer was one of
(45:48):
the King's own subjects. It's certainly a theory that chimes
with podcaster Jana Punkinner, Even if it is rather difficult
to admit out loud. Could have painer Bulgariads an inside job.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
Yeah, because we don't like each other very much. I
don't think that there were political life is so civilized
as to you know, spare prison.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
Well, here's the thing. Political life during Boris's reign was
anything but civilized. Whoever hated the king certainly got him
in the end, But the fatal poisoning wasn't a one
off attempt. Boris was a marked man from the minute
he took the throne. The king had already dodged several
(46:43):
serious assassination attempts, and all of them on his own soil.
Was the murder of the Bulgarian king an inside job.
Up in the Butterfly King, the stress of war catches
(47:04):
up with Boris.
Speaker 10 (47:05):
He had a suicidal thoughts because of the dramatic meeting
with Hitler with no issue.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Way out, and we learn how the leader of a
Christian sect prophesied the king's impending death. If King Boris
had followed the advice, if he just listened to the
person you call the master, he would have survived. Probably
(47:34):
he wouldn't have been killed.
Speaker 4 (47:37):
I say maybe, I think.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
The Butterfly King is a production of Blanchard House and
Exactly Right Media, hosted by me Becky Milligan. It's written
and produced by Emma Jane Kirby. Original music is by
Daniel Lloyd Evans, Louis nank Manell and Toby Mattimoon. Sound
(48:16):
design and engineering by Toby Mattamong and Daniel Lloyd Evans.
Artwork by Vanessa Lilac. The Managing producer is a Meeka
Schortino Nolan. The creative director of Blanchard House is Rosie Pye.
The executive producer and head of Content at Blanchard House
(48:37):
is Lawrence Grisell. For Exactly Right Media, the executive producers
are Karen Kilgareth Georgia Hardstark and Daniel Kramer, with consulting
producer Kyle Ryan. The Butterfly King is inspired by the
book Hitler and the King by John Haul Spencer.
A crisp winter's night in the grounds of Varana Palace
mid nineteen fifties, two burly men in thick overcoats trudged
through the long grass. Their breath creates huge clouds of
vapor in the sharp cold air. Their flashlights pick out
(00:39):
a small stone building hidden among the trees. Varana's a
wild place now. The beautiful tree lined avenues planted by
the king are straggly and overgrown, the flower beds choked
with weeds and garbage. The men take spades from the
(01:06):
tool shed and start to dig. There's a large stone
slab set in the grass. They lever it up and
with some difficulty, they haul it to one side. The
light from their flashlights flickers, but you can just about
(01:31):
make out the inscription chiseled into the weathered stone. It
reads King Boris the Third. This is the grave of
the last crowned King of Bulgaria, a victim of poisoning.
And these men, they're grave robbers. They work for the
(01:56):
new residents of Rana Palace, the new rules of Bulgaria,
the communists under Russian Soviet control. Grave robbers usually look
for gold or jewels. Not these grave robbers, though, thereafter
something much more precious the body. Why steal a corpse
(02:29):
unless you're afraid it's got something to hide? Did the
Soviets fear they were about to be exposed for the
murder of King Boris from Blanchard House? And exactly right? Media,
(02:49):
this is the butterfly King. I'm Becky Milligan, Chapter five,
(03:35):
caught red handed. Oh yes, what do you want?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Do you want? Well?
Speaker 3 (03:43):
I think we finally discovered a nice biscuit.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah, the eagle has landed.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
Here we are.
Speaker 5 (03:51):
I'll take one.
Speaker 6 (03:52):
You haven't pretty good?
Speaker 4 (03:53):
That's okay.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Oh, just all.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
These type of poison.
Speaker 6 (03:56):
I'm afraid I need.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
To take my own biscuit. So we're back in Sofia,
Bulgaria's capital, in my producer EJ's hotel room, and we're
taking stock of our day over tea and biscuits. It's
a British custom, of course, though not necessarily one. The
Bulgarians have mastered.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
These biscuits taste of air.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
It's like, oh, sorry, it's like flower it's my carpet.
Well they're tasting.
Speaker 6 (04:26):
They are a bit flowering. I'll give you that, a bit.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Oh my god, they're just coating the inside of my
rout as well as the biscuits. We're also trying to
chew over what we know about the case so far.
You can sort of cross countries off as you're going along.
You know, I was convinced that it was Nazis without
adult you know, on the plane with oxygen mask or
(04:51):
a bit of poison or you know, snake venom. And
as we've gone along, we've just crossed off each theory.
And then there's been another twist and another twist. But
now we have a fresh lead on who may have
killed the king thanks to a top secret decoded telegram
we unearthed in the archives. It points the finger of
(05:11):
blame fairly and squarely at Stalin's Soviet Union, the Communists
who occupied Bulgaria in nineteen forty four, a year after
Boris's death, and promptly turned the country red. So I
think it narrows it.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
Do you know where the Communist embassy was? Russian?
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Don't tell me? Next to the palace spot on. Yeah,
so you could have dug a tunnel under.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Well, you just popped in.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yeah, there'll be more twists, more twists, and turns to
car So was it the Soviets who killed Boris, and
if so, why to help investigate this case. We have
the best witnesses you could hope for King Boris's children,
(06:07):
Her Royal Highness Maria Louisa aged ninety, and his Majesty
King Simeon now eighty six. I mean, I don't say
this lightly, but it does feel quite a privilege to
have actually sat down with them. They agreed to do it,
and to talk so candidly about how the hell their
(06:27):
father died? I agree, I mean, and was he murdered?
And you know, it's obviously they've been consumed with it
for years and years and years. Both of them think
it wasn't normal. He didn't die a natural death. You
can just tell their faces tell you that. And they
want to know what happened, and they're so with it,
I mean, more with it than I was actually. But anyway,
(06:48):
well it's not so much have another best king. But anyway,
it's all very intriguing. Okay, So let's talk about the
Soviet Union and the tyrannical Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Stalin
(07:09):
dreamt of spreading communism across Eastern Europe and of creating
a buffer of territory there to protect the Motherland, the
Soviet Union. Little Bulgaria was right at that crossroads between
East and West Sandwich, between Romania and Greece, a vital
foothold for anyone trying to consolidate their power in the region.
(07:34):
So Stalin really wanted to control it. The only problem
was that there was a king in the way, a
very popular king.
Speaker 7 (07:45):
That's why Boris has been killed.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Hang on, let's hear that again.
Speaker 7 (07:50):
That's why Boris has been killed.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Okay, deep breath. Before we unpick this bombshell, let me
remind you that George Bosdiganov Bulgaria's leading historian. You might remember.
He's the academic who sometimes gets a little frustrated with
me when I can't keep up with the minutii of
Bulkan politics. But you heard him as well as I did.
(08:18):
He believes the Soviets needed King Boris out of the
way to fulfill an age old Russian dream of empire expansion,
and Boris was the annoying sort of obstacle who was
blocking the route.
Speaker 7 (08:32):
So ah, listen, listen to me a little bit.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Sorry, I'll let mister Bosdagaranov tell you himself.
Speaker 7 (08:42):
King Boris the only one buffer to study his ambitions
to take Bulgaria. That's very old to Russian ambitious, from
the time of Catherine the Great in Russia to centuries
before studying.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
I need this bailed out clearly. Who do you think
murdered King Boris?
Speaker 7 (09:04):
My personal opinion is that the Russian's special services killed
King Boris. Russian special services, Starling's special services killed him.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
So if we believe mister Bosdigaranov, the power hungry Soviets
decided to get the king out of the way, and
guess what happens. A year after Boris Is murdered, on
the fifth of September nineteen forty four, the Soviet Union
declares war on Bulgaria. Five days later, Stalin's Red Army
(09:39):
rolls into Sofia. They meet with no resistance. Many Bulgarians
welcome the Soviets as liberators. Don't forget Nazi troops have
been stationed in Bulgaria because King Boris had made an
alliance with Hitler. The Soviets team up with Communist dissidents
(10:01):
in Bulgaria. The new Red regime wastes no time in
securing power, and they sweep away their opponents ruthlessly. Thousands
are sentenced to death, not just those who supported the Nazis,
but basically anyone who didn't support them, like the royals,
(10:24):
the remaining royals. That is, now, after Boris dies, little
Simeon is on the throne. But it goes without saying
a child can't really run a country. So there are
three regents who rule for him. One of the regents
is Boris's prime minister, another is a high ranking general
(10:48):
in the Bulgarian army, and the third is King Boris's brother,
Prince Kirol.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
You get rid of him because he's going to be
a thorn in your side.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Are historian tell Sir Dunlop could see it coming, because
a few months after occupying Bulgaria, the Communists rounded up
the regents, then took them to a bomb crater in
Sophia Cemetery and shot them all dead, ruthless. And if
(11:23):
the Soviets could shoot a king's brother in cold blood,
doesn't it stand to reason that they could murder a
king too. But despite their successful power grab, something was
making the reds uneasy or should I say someone, because
the Soviets felt haunted by a ghost from the past,
(11:46):
a ghost who continued to make his presence felt from
beyond the grave. We're at the place where King Boris
was buried. After a memorial service in Sofia, the railwaymen
carried his coffin to the station. His body was then
(12:10):
taken by train here to the beautiful Realer monastery high
up in the Bulgarian mountains. The sound of the single
bell is plain and modest, but the building is extraordinarily ornate.
It's shaped in a sort of polygon, with black and
(12:30):
white archways striped like candy, and inside it's just amazing,
don't you think, Oh, blameyway.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
I mean, it's just it's.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Really difficult to convey just how remarkable it is, how ornate.
Every single bit of it is covered with frescoes, which
are sort of a dirty pink and blue and fox blood. Yeah, beautiful.
That noise you can hear is the monastery being cleaned
(13:00):
and polished. The huge gold chandelier gleamed so brightly it
actually makes you squint. It's like looking into the sun.
RelA is a fitting resting place for a king, but
the Soviets didn't see it that way. They wanted to
erase Boris from the collective memory because even after the
(13:23):
Soviet occupation, thousands of people still came to pray at
Boris's tomb as if it were a shrine. He was
a hero to so many Bulgarians, and that didn't please
the Communists. They wanted Bulgaria's regal past dead and buried
once and for all, So in nineteen forty six they
(13:47):
exumed King Boris and told his widow, Queen Giovanna, to
rebury him somewhere else, somewhere private. Maria Luisa was thirteen
years old and sime and nine when their father's body
was returned again to Varana Palace. It was deeply traumatic.
Speaker 6 (14:10):
Hideous, hideous. It was Holy Thursday, and my mother was
told they'll bring him back tomorrow morning. So mother called
some of the gardeners, found a little spot and had
a hole dug in the garden, and at dawn a
van arrived with the coffin.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
The royal children remember shivering in the half light, partly
from the cold, but partly from sheer terror. They were
still living in Varana, but the Soviets had put them
under house arrest, cut off from the outside world.
Speaker 6 (14:46):
Obviously, Communists did things all us in the dark. That's
part of their system, you know, so that people don't
see it. So they brought the coffin, and the coffin was,
of course with a little glass window, so we children
saw our papa three years after he had died. You know,
(15:07):
it wasn't easy. And then they buried him there and
Mamaden asked little chapels to be built on top of it.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Of course, it would have been easy for Stalin to
order the assassination of the remaining royals. He'd done away
with Boris's brother, and quite possibly with Boris himself too,
But the Soviets knew how popular the royals were. Murdering
the royal children was just too risky, so they played
(15:38):
it softly, softly.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
When you're occupying force, you want to take the hearts
and minds with you. To an extent, there's got to
be a sort of air of respectability.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Our historian Tessa Dunlop, I.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Mean, how much oppositions you get from a six year old?
I get quite a lot of opposition from mine, actually,
But you know, in real political terms, Boris was a
big hero, so why would you butcher his son, his
little delicate piece of progeny. Why wouldn't you just keep
that politically emasculated as a fig leaf of respectability to
(16:14):
smooth over your accession to power or takeover of power,
which is what the Communists did.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
So once their takeover of power is secure, the Soviets
find a better way of getting rid of Simeon and
his mother and sister. They send them into exile in Egypt,
and as soon as the royal family move out of
Rana Pallas, communist leaders move in. It'll be fifty years
(16:41):
before Simeon and Maria Luisa see their home again. But
even with the royal family now thousands of miles away,
the Communists can't let their beef with royalty rest there.
In fact, they can't let Boris rest at all. Let's
(17:04):
knit back to Varana Palace for a second. The King's
charming age. Jarfl has something to show us, a crime scene.
But on the way, a little digression. Are you getting chili?
It is a bit chilly, only my head? Yeah, how
(17:24):
far is the cemetery?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Is here? Oh?
Speaker 6 (17:27):
Perfect?
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Jarvar is taking us to a little clearing in the woodland,
and in the long grass there's a small collection of
flagstone graves, the resting place of some other short lived
members of the royal household, four legged ones.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
He is born in May ninety twenty three and to
die in May nineteen twenty six.
Speaker 8 (17:53):
This is quite common, isn't it to have a dog
cemetery in royal palaces? Actually, I think the Queen definitely
did have one, and now King Charles.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
This is also in Bulgarian, but this is in Latin, right,
Booby Booby.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
I like the name Booby. The Communists clearly didn't have
a problem with royal pets lovely, so therefore here on.
Speaker 8 (18:20):
Five and the big one.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
The big one is interesting.
Speaker 9 (18:23):
It's not a dog, right, Yeah, it's a horse of
King Boris.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
King Boris's horse, Oh, how lovely?
Speaker 2 (18:33):
And King Signon have one cat, had one cat.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
It's the tradition continues, yes it does.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Moving on from the pet cemetery, we arrive at the
crime scene. I mentioned King Boris's grave, and while all
the pets have headstones, there's nothing now at Varana to
mark the grave of King Boris the third because the
graves empty. In the nineteen fifties, a few years after
(19:16):
they'd ordered the king's body to be reburied from the
real monastery to Frana, the Communists did something extraordinary, They
decided to exhume the king again. Remember where we started
this episode. Sometime in the nineteen fifties, in the dead
(19:38):
of night, the Communists dug up Boris's body. They removed
it from its resting place in the gardens of Vrana
Palace and took it away. Where to is anyone's guess. Now.
By the nineteen fifties, Stalin's Red Army had long since
left Bulgaria. They might back home in nineteen forty seven,
(20:02):
but the new Communist leadership that was established in Sofia
wasn't just loyal to Moscow. It was basically a satellite
of the Soviet Union. When Stalin said jump, Bulgaria just
asked how high. So did Stalin order the second exhumation
because he was afraid the Soviet Union might be found
(20:25):
out for the murder of the king? Was he trying
to destroy the evidence by stealing the king's corpse and
disposing of it? And remember that little chapel. Maria Louisa
told us it had been built over the grave to
mark her father's tomb. At first, the Communist used it
as a.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Tool shed and then a little blown up.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Over the years. Maria Luisa and Simeon have tried desperately
to find out what happened to their beloved father's remains,
even managed to trace the Bulgarian soldiers who dug up
the grave.
Speaker 6 (21:05):
I was told that there were some soldiers that had
taken out the body from the tomb here in the garden.
And I definitely didn't ask to see these poor riches
because they are not the ones who did it. You know,
they were ordered, and God knows what could have happened
to their families if I ever confronted them, you know,
(21:28):
don't forget that BULGEO. Until a few years there were
still some of the old people around, some of the
old communists, you know, and I would never have anybody
disappear or get punished them. And it is a total
mystery what they did with my father's body.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
So, but the story didn't end there. Many years later,
it took an even more sinister turn. In nineteen ninety one,
after the fall of immunism, a dirty glass jar was
found in a medical institute in Sofia. Inside it was
(22:08):
a human heart, preserved a royal human heart.
Speaker 6 (22:14):
It survived because it was checked and it is Papa's heart.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
I mean is not doubt about it.
Speaker 6 (22:19):
So when it was found, of course some people had
to parade it hearth of the king, and my poor
mother saw it on the newspaper, which totally unnecessary.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Why did the Soviets preserve the king's heart as a trophy,
a souvenir of their heenous crime. It's not altogether unknown
for a monarch to have his mortal remains divided. Louis
the fourteenth of France had his body buried in one
Parisian church, while his heart was interred at Notre Dame Cathedral.
(22:52):
But Queen Giovanna certainly didn't ask for this to happen
to her husband, King Boris, so who removed his heart?
And why then hide that heart unless you fear it
contains proof of a poisonous secret. Now, when I began
this investigation, everyone I spoke to told me to listen
(23:15):
closely to Maria Louisa, because while King Simeon has to
toe the line of diplomacy, she can speak her mind
more freely about who she believes killed her father. So
I'm going to test that theory now and put Maria
Louisa on the spot. Do you have any gut feeling
(23:39):
of who it was.
Speaker 6 (23:41):
I think I can leave that to you by deduction
who had the greatest advantage so gets rid of him.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
It's a nail biting moment. I desperately want Maria Louisa
to tell me who she thinks murdered her father. So
I say nothing and wait, and then.
Speaker 6 (24:05):
In my soul I see the only people who had
it really an advantage were getting rid of him because
they were there yet letter the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
There we have it. Maria Luisa is convinced the Soviets
killed her father, and not only that, she's sure they
spent the next fifty years rewriting history and covering up
the evidence.
Speaker 6 (24:34):
Don't forget that when they occupied us, they took the
whole entire Bulgarian archives, stayed archives, and they're still in Moscow.
They were never returned. Bulgaria has asked for them, they
never give back.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Could the proof lie in Moscow in the archives of
the Russian Secret Services the KGB? Nobody can get to
those because that could be quite interesting.
Speaker 6 (25:02):
Yes, I can't ride anything.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
I think we've now established the Soviets had a very
clear motive for killing Boris. As for their means, well,
Russian assassins have long had a love affair with poison.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
They have no morals or scruples, They have no limits.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Colonel Hamish de Breton Gordon is our chemical weapons expert.
He told us about the nerve agents that the Nazis
were developing in the war. But it turns out that
the Germans were novices compared to the Soviets.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
You know, most of the poisons that we're talking about.
The most knowledge we have about assassination is again coming
from the Russians, the Russian secret Service.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
In the last few decades, there've been several high profile
poisoning cases involving the Russians secret services. Russian dissidents have
been attacked with deadly nerve agents and chemical weapons like ricin,
polonium and novichok, and with chilling success. And unlike snake venom,
(26:17):
which has to be injected to kill someone, nerve agents
can work their way through the skin. Some are so
powerful you just need to brush against them to suffer
serious consequences, as the Russian opposition leader Alexi Navalni found
out in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
With Nabalni, there's a view actually that the nerve agent
was put in his parents it's hunderpants and that's how
it got into him.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Now, King Boris was a canny politician. So despite Bulgaria
officially being an enemy of the Soviet Union, remember Bulgaria
was allied with Germany, Boris had managed to keep up
diplomatic relations with Stalin and that meant the Russian embassy
stayed open throughout the war, right next door to the
(27:08):
Royal Palace. It wouldn't have been difficult for the Russians
to sneak in poison on a door handle, perhaps in food,
maybe even in documents or letters. And before you remind
me that nerve agents like Novechok weren't invented until much later,
believe me, their predecessors were equally terrifying. How do we
(27:31):
know that, Well, the Soviets might have hidden all of
Bulgaria's archives, but some of their own intelligence surfaced in
the nineteen nineties, basically after the fall of communism, top
secret documents from Russia were very briefly declassified, and in
those papers the proof that by nineteen forty three, the
(27:55):
year of King Boris's death, two poison laboratories were up
and running in the Soviet Union, and guests who saw
those papers about the poison factories.
Speaker 7 (28:07):
I saw them in the nineties.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Our very own favorite Bulgarian historian, George Bostergaranoff. And there's
something I haven't told you yet about George Bostergaranoff, something
that will make you really pay attention to what he's
saying here, because apart from being an eminent historian, mister
Bosdegaranoff's also a doctor, a medical doctor.
Speaker 10 (28:34):
That is.
Speaker 7 (28:36):
From ninety thirty eight to nineteen fifty three, the Anchovid
that's Rusian Special Service maintained two laboratories for the production
of deadly poisonous toxicological one and bacteriological one.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
And these laboratories had a specific brief, not just to
silence Stalin's enemies, but.
Speaker 7 (28:59):
To do it without leaving any traces.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
In other words, to get away with it, and to
make sure they did. The Soviets practiced on real people,
on prisoners, and this is where it all starts to
sound like some sort of gruesome parlor game. Once the
prisoner died, external pathologists were brought in to play guests
(29:26):
the cause of death.
Speaker 7 (29:28):
Two hundred to fifty people were cute during these experiments.
The Corps of the persons cute are taken to the
marks of medical institutes or unsuspecting doctors perform autopsy.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
So you're telling me that they were developing poisons, toxins
that could be used to kill people, and they tested
them on prisoners, mostly didn't they And yet no doctor
could ever tell that poison had been used.
Speaker 7 (30:00):
The diagnosis is usually unequivocal acute heart failure, heart attack.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Acute heart failure heart attack, precisely the official cause of
death given for King Boris, the third of Bulgaria. So
is that how the Soviets got away with murder? Bulgaria's
(30:28):
national archives never resurfaced, but we know the Communists did
mysteriously unearth Boris's heart, preserved in a jar, from that
medical institute in Sofia, and when the royal family was
made aware that Boris's heart had been found, they asked
for it to be reburied again at the realer monastery,
(30:50):
where it remains today. So will you show us where
the remains of King Boris?
Speaker 5 (30:58):
On the right side? What do we see here is
the grave of King Boris aut let Us gone inside.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
This is amazing because we've heard so much about it.
Speaker 4 (31:09):
Every mad just amazing and to be let into the
private bit.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
This is where where his son Simeon comes to pay
his respects every year. Listen to Michael, the official tour
guide at RelA talk about the king and you really
get why the Soviets needed Boris out of the way.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
King Boris A thirty is the most prominent, respected and
loved Bulgarian ruler from the modern Bulgarian history. He was
famous for his deep concern for the life of the
common people, his great care towards the poor and the Sikh.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
The Soviets could never have marched in and occupied Bulgaria
if the adored king had still been on the throne.
The Bulgarian people just wouldn't have stood for it.
Speaker 5 (31:58):
People still venerated King Boris through it as a saint,
did they as a saint? Yes, they venervated him with kritlov.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
As for the communists sacrilegious treatment to the King's body
after his death, well they nearly didn't get away with it.
Remember the first time the Communists decided to dig up
the king at RelA and to dump him at Frana.
When the Habbit of Reela got wind of the plan,
he refused the grave Digger's access. He reminded them that
(32:27):
Reela was a holy place. But the Communists had no
truck with either monarchs or monks. Plus they had a
visit from a Soviet big wig pending, and they couldn't
have fought for that Soviet big wig to think the
Bulgarians were still pining for their royals. So that night
they came with their spades.
Speaker 5 (32:48):
The monks were locked inside their rooms and they were
warrant that if anyone goes out, they would be killed immediately.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Yes, the Communists knew how to get their own way,
and they knew that dead or alive, Boris still posed
a threat to their regime. So they did what our
historian Tessa Dunlop says is standard Communist practice. There raised
him from history.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
After the Iron curtain comes down, and even before you
want to eradicate the memory of the individual monarch who
gives the nation something nostalgic, romantic and a world or
a vision other than the Communist vision. And it's one
of the reasons why we haven't heard of some of
these great personalities like Ferdinand, like Boris of Bulgaria, because
(33:38):
the Communist did a really good job of burying their legacy,
their history.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
So we know the Soviet specialty was rewriting history, but
they could hardly write a new national story with an
old protagonist in the starring role. So they needed to
write King Boris clean out of the script, and once
he was off, they were free to write a brand
new chapter of their own, one in which the Communists
(34:06):
were the heroes.
Speaker 9 (34:13):
Devati is on a grad Detective.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Anna Blagova and Gianna Punkiner host a Bulgarian podcast called
The Urban Detective. Their show explores all kinds of different
cultural and social topics, but they've never dared tackle the
death of King Boris because despite the fact they're highly educated,
(34:37):
Anna admits their own history is a bit of a
mystery to them. Under the Communists, any debate about Bulgaria's
past was completely squashed.
Speaker 9 (34:49):
One of the reasons I guess we don't know much
about it is that Bulgearian history is still very contested.
It was very contested when we were in school, and
to be honest, I only study twentieth century Bulgarian history
in sixth grade, so this period has kind of I
feel faded from memory.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Both women were born around the time the Communist regime
collapsed in Bulgaria. That's almost fifty years after King Boris's death,
but Anna says there's still a huge divide in her
country between those who are royalists and those who are
Communist sympathizers.
Speaker 9 (35:28):
We're very polarized and there is a clash between those
two kinds of nostalgia, which is preventing any sort of
normal discussion and truth to come out.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
In fact, Yanna wonders if the truth about who killed
King Boris maybe needs to stay buried because it's still
such a poisonous subject.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
I don't know if it would be good to know,
even maybe it would have a bad effect on people.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
It's just interesting when you say it might be bad
for people to know the truth. Why would it be bad?
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Because I think that there is this thing about Bulgaria.
You know that Bulgaria is such a small country that
everything that could be a political question is not really
political questions of family question Like everybody is everybody's relative.
Everybody knows someone who knows someone who knows someone, or
who has seen something, and every political change or thurpulence
(36:27):
or argument in the country is somehow happening inside the families.
It's very different from a like a big country with
the century long history of democracy, because here everybody is related.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Both Anna and Yanna have seen fierce clashes within their
own families over the interpretation of Bulgarian history. There are
two conflicting narratives, those who believe the Soviets murdered the
king so they could invade and occupy Bulgaria, and those
who believe the Communists heroically liberated their country from fascism
(37:04):
from Boris's alliance with Hitler.
Speaker 9 (37:06):
I don't know where to stand on this, and now
it's very hard to come to an independent conclusion by yourself.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
We're still learning what was going on during the communist regime. Yeah,
we don't know everything.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Anna Anyana both feel uncomfortable about this disputed history, particularly because,
through Bulgaria's past alliance with Nazi Germany, they feel their
country was implicated in the deportation of those eleven thousand
Jews from Thrace and Macedonia.
Speaker 9 (37:44):
I feel some sort of guilt as a descendant, some
sort of generational guilt. And even though, of course Bulgarian
civil society, in one of its greatest acts, managed to
prevent the Jewish people on the territory of Bulgaria from
being sent off to concentration camps. The ones from our
(38:07):
presumed old territories were deported. So I think it's impossible
not to feel this sort of sort of guilt. So
it doesn't make me feel angry, it makes me feel sad.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Of course, I don't think that I feel guilt. I
definitely feel shamed, because, yeah, we were on the wrong
side of history. King Boris was probably he was also
against deportation. But I think King Boris was probably in
an extremely delicate position during the Second World War, and
I think he was working on a very thin tightrope.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
And someone couldn't wait for Boris to fall off that tightrope,
so someone gave him a shove. I want you to
hear just one more bit of evidence about the Soviets
and the deep hatred of royalty.
Speaker 10 (39:03):
I will tell you something.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Maybe haven't mentioned, but listen closely, because Simeon rarely bears
his soul, and this story tells us a lot about
the callousness of the Soviets, about what they were capable
of and what they were prepared to do to make
sure history went their way. You'll remember that just a
(39:26):
few months after the Red Army marched into Sofia, Boris's brother,
Prince Kirol and the other regents were rounded up to
be executed. Queen Giovanna was distraught, and she was terrified
for her children's safety. What if they were next? So
she wrote a letter, a begging letter, pleading for help.
(39:48):
It was smuggled out of the palace and addressed to
King Boris's English cousins, to the Windsors, to King George
the sixth of Great Britain.
Speaker 10 (39:58):
And she don't say, desperate letter to his Majesty to
say if something could be done, And there was never
an answer or anything like it.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Whole Queen Giovanna went to her grave believing King Boris's
British family had turned their backs on their Bulgarian relatives.
But Simeon felt sure something was a miss. So one
day in the nineteen eighties, he was hanging out with
Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret at Balmoral, the royal estate
(40:33):
in Scotland, as one does, and perhaps emboldened by some
good Scotch whiskey. Okay, admittedly that's just how I imagine
the scene, he dared to ask them the question why
did your father ignore our plea for help?
Speaker 10 (40:54):
I was also looking if that letter had ever arrived.
It didn't. They had never received it, so it was
intercepted from here where my mother gave it to somebody,
who gave it to somebody else who should have passed
it on, although we were already occupied by the Soviets.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Exactly, Bulgaria was already occupied by the Soviets, who certainly
didn't want the royal family a family they were intent
on wiping out being aided in any way at all.
So if we suspect it was the Soviets who intercepted
that letter, can we also now conclude that it was
also very probably the Soviets who murdered King Boris. They
(41:38):
had their motive, they had the means, and they had
the opportunity.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
I'm not saying it wasn't possible. I'm not saying it
didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
But that's the one problem with historian Tessa Dunlop. There's
always a butt sure.
Speaker 4 (41:54):
I am not refuting the capacity of the Soviet Union
to murder. Most foul had many ingenious ways of bopping
people off, and would go on and hone those faculties
for many decades to come. Nor am I denying that
Boris wasn't a potential target. I just think that it's unlikely.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
But even Maria Luisa has stuck her neck out to
blame the Soviets.
Speaker 4 (42:23):
That's certainly what the family would want you to think
that the Royal family, because they lost their entire livelihood
and their country to the Communists who took away Simian's kingdom.
Who rubbed out the royal family in Bulgaria was the Russians?
Wasn't it so convenient in terms of that narrative if
you're a monarchist in Bulgaria to blame the Russians?
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Well, okay, yes, I can see that. Obviously, Simeon and
Maria Luisa are going to be resentful of the Soviets.
They did abolish the monarchy after all, and went on
to steal all their palaces. But what about the Soviet
embassy in Sofia. Now, for me, the proximity of that
(43:03):
embassy to the Royal Palace provided the Soviets with the
perfect opportunity to kill the king. Why but not for Tessa?
Speaker 4 (43:15):
Sure that the Soviets had much better intelligence going on
in Bulgaria. It's Laughter's laugh, But Bulgaria hadn't declared war
on the Soviets. They've never put boots on the ground
in Russia. And given that he's revered in Bulgaria, he
has the hearts and minds of the people, why would
you pick him of all people to poison to practice
(43:38):
your poisoning on Why?
Speaker 1 (43:41):
I suppose Tessa has a point there. I mean King
Boris repeatedly refused Hitler's demands to send Bulgarian troops to
fight the Russians on the Eastern Front. He also deliberately
left Russia out of his symbolic declaration of war against
the Allies.
Speaker 4 (43:59):
Is a man who held the door open. He said himself,
my people are pro Russian, I am pro Bulgaria.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
But this still doesn't quite add up for me. I'm
afraid because the fact is we know King Boris hated Communism.
He feared correctly as it turned out, that Bulgaria would
be swallowed up by the Soviet Union. And we also
know that loathing was mutual.
Speaker 4 (44:30):
The Communists had beef with the king, certainly they're not
easy bedfellows. But if he was murdered at the command
of a Communist, then it would have been done by
I think a Bulgarian communist, someone with the nohow, with
the wherewith all and with the contacts. Sorry, but we
never looked for the most obvious.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
Right, Let's just unpick that for a second. So Tessa
is not saying I'm wrong to blame communist assassins for
the King's much. She's just saying I should perhaps focus
on homegrown communist assassins rather than the Soviets themselves on
Bulgarian communists.
Speaker 4 (45:12):
I'm not saying that any of these individual parties weren't
capable of it. And this was the Second World War,
it was the biggest period of mass murder known to
humankind ever, I'm just saying, don't rule out the Communist
on the ground.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Now, that's interesting because I happen to know that the
Bulgarian Communist Party had a really rocky relationship with the king.
In fact, Boris banned the Communist Party altogether in the
nineteen thirties, so the Bulgarian Communists had a major grudge
against him. Does this mean the killer was one of
(45:48):
the King's own subjects. It's certainly a theory that chimes
with podcaster Jana Punkinner, Even if it is rather difficult
to admit out loud. Could have painer Bulgariads an inside job.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
Yeah, because we don't like each other very much. I
don't think that there were political life is so civilized
as to you know, spare prison.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
Well, here's the thing. Political life during Boris's reign was
anything but civilized. Whoever hated the king certainly got him
in the end, But the fatal poisoning wasn't a one
off attempt. Boris was a marked man from the minute
he took the throne. The king had already dodged several
(46:43):
serious assassination attempts, and all of them on his own soil.
Was the murder of the Bulgarian king an inside job.
Up in the Butterfly King, the stress of war catches
(47:04):
up with Boris.
Speaker 10 (47:05):
He had a suicidal thoughts because of the dramatic meeting
with Hitler with no issue.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Way out, and we learn how the leader of a
Christian sect prophesied the king's impending death. If King Boris
had followed the advice, if he just listened to the
person you call the master, he would have survived. Probably
(47:34):
he wouldn't have been killed.
Speaker 4 (47:37):
I say maybe, I think.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
The Butterfly King is a production of Blanchard House and
Exactly Right Media, hosted by me Becky Milligan. It's written
and produced by Emma Jane Kirby. Original music is by
Daniel Lloyd Evans, Louis nank Manell and Toby Mattimoon. Sound
(48:16):
design and engineering by Toby Mattamong and Daniel Lloyd Evans.
Artwork by Vanessa Lilac. The Managing producer is a Meeka
Schortino Nolan. The creative director of Blanchard House is Rosie Pye.
The executive producer and head of Content at Blanchard House
(48:37):
is Lawrence Grisell. For Exactly Right Media, the executive producers
are Karen Kilgareth Georgia Hardstark and Daniel Kramer, with consulting
producer Kyle Ryan. The Butterfly King is inspired by the
book Hitler and the King by John Haul Spencer.
Hosts And Creators
Emma Jane Kirby
Becky Milligan
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!